Historians horrified by video showing Islamic State militants destroying cultural artefacts

ELIZABETH JACKSON: Observers around the world have expressed shock and dismay at the latest Islamic State propaganda video.

It depicts men destroying valuable historical monuments in the Iraqi city of Mosul.

Ancient Assyrian relics were among the wrecked artefacts.

Sarah Sedghi reports.

SARAH SEDGHI: It's the latest from the propaganda machine of the Islamic State.

A video posted online shows several unidentified men in an Iraqi museum taking sledgehammers to statues.

They watch on as the ancient relics smash to the floor.

BENJAMIN ISAKHAN: To give you a parallel example, what we're witnessing in Iraq and Syria would be a little bit like the complete destruction of the Statue of David, the burning of the Sistine Chapel, the tearing down of the Colosseum brick by brick.

SARAH SEDGHI: Dr Benjamin Isakhan is an Iraq expert at Deakin University.

He says it was devastating to see such important artefacts destroyed.

BENJAMIN ISAKHAN: There is just no way to quantify the loss here.

For example, the winged bulls, they're called Lamassu, right, the winged bulls of ancient Assyrian empires.

These things have been around for 3,000 years. They are the iconic edifice of the ancient Assyrian empire.

SARAH SEDGHI: The relics are from a museum in the Iraqi city of Mosul. It's been an IS stronghold since June last year.

Professor Eleanor Robson from University College London knows the museum and told the BBC it's an unimaginable loss.

ELEANOR ROBSON: I can recognise the little museum on the archaeological site of Nineveh, the ancient Assyrian capital.

It's 14 years since I visited there but nevertheless it's a familiar place and these are undoubtedly genuine objects.

It's heartbreaking for me and I'm thinking too of my colleagues in Mosul itself, my archaeology colleagues, my university colleagues for whom this is their lives and they must be watching this, seeing their whole lives being smashed to pieces and my heart bleeds for them far more than for me.

SARAH SEDGHI: IS militants have in the past raised money from selling priceless artefacts but Dr Isakhan says they have an even bigger motivation to completely destroy the region's history.

BENJAMIN ISAKHAN: This is the sort of trajectory that we can trace.

We know that the Taliban had similar, not exactly the same, but similar ideological roots to ISIS as did al Qaeda and both of those earlier organisations, which of course still exist, went through periods of mass iconoclasm.

So in the case of the Taliban, in 2001 we saw the destruction of the massive Bamiyan Buddhas in Afghanistan, which was really heralded as a major global tragedy, which of course it was.

And this precisely drew on that same idea that these things were firstly of a different religion so therefore they are driven by that kind of sectarianism of alternate visions and understandings of god are disrespectful and blasphemous, and secondly, that one shouldn't create false idols or icons here on Earth.

SARAH SEDGHI: The militants have long been destroying anything that they deem not to be true to Islam.

This is what an unidentified IS insurgent had to say about the attack.

IS INSURGENT (translation): To all Muslims, these statues are idols of people of centuries past which were worshipped instead of Allah.

SARAH SEDGHI: Earlier this month, UNESCO (United Nations Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organization) expressed sadness at the mass scale burning of books on philosophy, law, science and poetry by IS militants in Mosul.

Now this video has come to light, UNESCO has called for an emergency meeting at the UN Security Council to talk about how Iraq's heritage can be protected.

Bob Stanton is from the Global Heritage Fund.

He says the museum attack is a loss for future generations as well.

BOB STANTON: I think as future generations come along and they want to better understand what occurred before them, how their country got to where it is, how the culture evolved to what it is.

By losing these invaluable assets, it's erased, so you're kind of starting from, you know, a green field which is unfortunate because these are parts of the world where human history goes back the furthest and has been preserved the longest so it's incredibly devastating to see this happen.

SARAH SEDGHI: Dr Benjamin Isakhan says what's lost is priceless and can't be replaced.

BENJAMIN ISAKHAN: What we're witnessing really is a major chapter in the broader story of human civilisation being completely destroyed and once it's destroyed, it's lost forever.

SARAH SEDGHI: Some of the objects destroyed were replicas and some where originals.

ELIZABETH JACKSON: That report from Sarah Sedghi.